A New Role for Beijing’s Panchen Lama

The Chinese government-backed Panchen Lama has joined a group of leading citizens that advises the nation’s legislature, part of an effort to raise his public profile.

Gyaincain Norbu, installed as the high-ranking Tibetan Buddhist cleric as a child in 1995 and now 20 years old, has been playing a more prominent public role as a religious leader and supporter of Communist Party rule in recent years, after previously staying out of the spotlight.

Associated Press

The Panchen Lama at the World Buddhist Forum last year

The young monk was named to the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference on Sunday, according to the official Xinhua news agency. The group consists of more than 2,200 people, including well-known academics, television personalities, entrepreneurs and government officials who advise the National People’s Congress.

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The CPPCC will meet Wednesday, followed by the annual meeting of the People’s Congress, which starts Friday in Beijing.

The Panchen Lama – believed to be the reincarnation of the second-highest ranking lama in the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism — is at the center of a struggle for control of the religion between the Chinese government and exiled Tibetan clerical and political figures led by the Dalai Lama, the top Gelug lama.

In 1995, the Dalai Lama recognized a young Tibetan boy as the reincarnation of the previous Panchen Lama, who died in 1989. Soon after, Chinese security forces detained the boy and his family. They haven’t been seen publicly since. Beijing instead backed Gyaincain Norbu after a government-sanctioned selection process.

The addition of Gyaincain Norbi to the CPPCC soon after the Dalai Lama’s White House meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama, highlights Beijing’s efforts to set up an alternate Tibetan Buddhist leadership to that led by the Dalai Lama.

The government has recently stepped up efforts to promote its Panchen. Temples and shops in parts of Yunnan province near the Tibet Autonomous Region have been ordered by officials to display his picture and erect shrines honoring him. And he makes more frequent public statements, such as one in the wake of anti-Han Chinese riots in Lhasa in 2008, in which he said: “We resolutely oppose all activities to split the country and undermine ethnic unity.”

So far, Gyaincain Norbu has failed to gain much of a popular following. Many Tibetan temples display only pictures of the previous Panchen, often alongside illicit images of the Dalai Lama, whom China accuses of promoting independence for Tibet.

One monk, at a temple in Qinghai province, said Gyaincain Norbu “is someone who has been kidnapped by the Chinese government. The government tells him where to go. His words are written by the Chinese government. It’s sad to see him this way.”

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